4 ms·

FWIW, this isn't so much a story of "being young in 2020" as it is "being young in 2020 in the hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US"

FWIW, this isn't so much a story of "being young in 2020" as it is "being young in 2020 in the hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US". This phenomenon is actually pretty unique to a handful of metro areas, which happen to be over-represented on HN. In most of the country, bright high school students are focused on getting into their state's flagship public university, and exceptionally successful ones might be focused on getting into the honors programs at those universities. Those students might buff their resume by participating in the "National Honor Society", but they're not doing anywhere near the amount of credential-buffing described above. Unfortunately, if you live somewhere where this is the culture, it's very difficult to opt-out. Parents don't have full control, because students absorb expectations from their peers and their peers' parents as well. Everyone agrees that the situation is out of control, but no one can "unilaterally disarm".

gibolt 6y ago
Absolutely disagree. This was the case for me at average high school and college in the midwest. I'd say ~50% of the populations had those pressures. Going to a upper tier college for grad school showed me that only the percentage changes, going from maybe ~50% to ~75%
closeparen 6y ago
This is the segment of every part of the country that aspires to those costal metro areas. The driving motivation is "get me the hell out of this godforsaken place." The personal cost was immense, but I'm glad I did. I got to do fun and high-impact work at a fast-rising startup while my title and TC leapt up by $50-$100k each year. I got to meet friends from all over the world, travel, hike, run outdoors year-round, never shovel snow again, walk to everything I need from my high-rise apartment. At home I'd be lucky to have made Help Desk Technician II for $17/hour, lucky to have a car that starts, lucky to know a single personal socially who had ever voluntarily read a book. Most of my classmates who stayed aren't working at all. The only ones really thriving had guaranteed slots at family businesses. It's not a poor place. Everyone's parents made a decent living. But the firms at which they did so were in either stasis or decline, not desperate to hire 22-year-olds. The delayed gratification story is very much real.
- alexhutcheson 6y ago
  NYC, SF, Silicon Valley, Seattle, LA, etc. are all full of successful people who went to public universities that didn’t require crazy high school credentials to get into.
  - lambdasquirrel 6y ago
    If you want to be an engineer and deal with tech culture, sure. We can be a little myopic about that here on HN. Engineering is not "status" oriented, and going to a nice school doesn't have the weight it does, if you want to be doctor and heal people, for example. School still matters. We can't all start startups.
    - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
      Hell, I'm a software developer and don't even have a CS degree. Did I feel like the bar was higher for me than it may have been if I did have one? Sure, but I was still able to overcome it. Granted I'm not in an environment like the Valley (out of choice as much as anything), but I am an actual, real software dev. On the other hand, in my past life I was a lawyer. I worked my ass off in high school to get into a top journalism school, worked hard in college and studied my ass off for the LSAT to get into a top-20 law school, and that STILL wasn't enough for me to get anywhere close to a high powered legal job. The worlds are very much different. I obviously prefer the more merit-based environment that's still found in tech, where "can you do the job" still trumps most things. But things are much much different in other environments.
      - eldavido 6y ago
        Long before this comment, I've believed software engineering is becoming more like law. There's been a noticeable uptick in credential-obsession, more of a "tracked" career, just eveything about it is heading in a more high-comp / professionalized / careerist direction. Probably inevitable given devs are making "real money" (biglaw or higher) in Silicon Valley, and having real influence, but still, I agree something may have been lost.
majormajor 6y ago
My early-2000s experience in mid-size-city Texas - not even Dallas or Houston - was getting closer to the OP. It wasn't that extreme, but the bright students were in magnet programs (or private schools, if $$$$), and were loading up on APs, SAT IIs, and all that crap. And the goal - accomplished by a handful of my class - was Harvard, Rice, Columbia, Duke, etc.
throw149102 6y ago
I think there's still things that ring out to me as true even though I didn't have that experience (Grew up in Iowa). So I'll agree that it's not always the hyper-competitive aspect of it, but it's the need to have a personal brand and to push that out on social media. And the desire to escape from our current economic conditions by credentialing is still there, even though it's not nearly as intense, and not all people here feel it equally.
heymijo 6y ago
> being young in 2020 in the hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US I think you'd be surprised how many 8th graders across the country are already stressing about SAT/ACT scores in places like southeast Ohio or Branson, MO. I just pulled Branson out of a hat and here's their recommendations for ACT/SAT testingv[0]. I've seen a lot of schools across the U.S. This schedule matches up with offical recs, but it's half the story. Goodhart's Law is in effect here. Those who are ahead will try to cement their leads. So official recs are ACT/SAT round 1 junior year. Those at the head of the pack find ways to test as early as middle school. These students know the game and feel the pressure, even when their families aren't pushing that hard. This culture is institutionalized in places well beyond the coasts and major metros. [0] https://www.branson.k12.mo.us/Page/3011 https://www.branson.k12.mo.us/Page/3011
- eldavido 6y ago
  If you look at the bigger picture it's hard to imagine this wouldn't be the case. Not trying to start a generational food fight but realistically the world has changed since the boomers grew up. The US is facing major great power rivalry from China, we're much more internationalized (I read in the economist that only ~5% of US citizens had passports around 1990), and probably something almost nobody is talking about, the financial condition of the country is vastly different today -- our national debt just passed 100% of GDP, our state and local governments are financially stretched, GDP growth has slowed down, and environmental causes are consuming more attention, and money. It'a almost unfathomable how much debt the US piled up at every level, from households to state and local to federal, over the past 50 years. It's a double-whammy: they weren't properly funding pensions/infrastructure/etc then, and now we have to both keep these things in good repair, AND make up for all the debt that's been accumulated (both financial and otherwise) by them not doing it over last generation. The decline of manufacturing EMPLOYMENT (not value created) is also a big part of this. There used to be this demand for high school graduates where you could just walk into a place and get a job. Nowadays, that's a lot harder to do. Just look at how many hours of work is required to afford the basic necessities of life (food, healthcare, shelter), it's gone up a lot. Not going to pontificate on why that is, but I think it's worth acknowledging as being true. Kind of hard to see how things wouldn't be more stressed, and stressful, today than 40-50 years ago.
vinay427 6y ago
> hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US I agree with the rest of your comment so I don't want to generally detract, but I think the qualification of major coastal metro areas includes a lot of places where your comment doesn't apply and excludes a lot of others (e.g. the upper Midwest). I think there are aspects where major coastal metros are outliers, but grade school and public university quality isn't one of them.
- alexhutcheson 6y ago
  Yeah, it was a short-hand way to convey the categorization and could have been more more precise. In reality, every region has its own culture that is somewhere along this spectrum. I’d also note that I think “school/university quality” != “a high pressure environment”. There are plenty of places that have one but not the other. In particular, there are lots of places where high schools are providing excellent education and public university options are good, but students don’t feel like they are in a pressure cooker.

gibolt 6y ago

Absolutely disagree. This was the case for me at average high school and college in the midwest. I'd say ~50% of the populations had those pressures. Going to a upper tier college for grad school showed me that only the percentage changes, going from maybe ~50% to ~75%

closeparen 6y ago

This is the segment of every part of the country that aspires to those costal metro areas. The driving motivation is "get me the hell out of this godforsaken place." The personal cost was immense, but I'm glad I did. I got to do fun and high-impact work at a fast-rising startup while my title and TC leapt up by $50-$100k each year. I got to meet friends from all over the world, travel, hike, run outdoors year-round, never shovel snow again, walk to everything I need from my high-rise apartment. At home I'd be lucky to have made Help Desk Technician II for $17/hour, lucky to have a car that starts, lucky to know a single personal socially who had ever voluntarily read a book. Most of my classmates who stayed aren't working at all. The only ones really thriving had guaranteed slots at family businesses. It's not a poor place. Everyone's parents made a decent living. But the firms at which they did so were in either stasis or decline, not desperate to hire 22-year-olds. The delayed gratification story is very much real.

alexhutcheson 6y ago
NYC, SF, Silicon Valley, Seattle, LA, etc. are all full of successful people who went to public universities that didn’t require crazy high school credentials to get into.
- lambdasquirrel 6y ago
  If you want to be an engineer and deal with tech culture, sure. We can be a little myopic about that here on HN. Engineering is not "status" oriented, and going to a nice school doesn't have the weight it does, if you want to be doctor and heal people, for example. School still matters. We can't all start startups.
  - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
    Hell, I'm a software developer and don't even have a CS degree. Did I feel like the bar was higher for me than it may have been if I did have one? Sure, but I was still able to overcome it. Granted I'm not in an environment like the Valley (out of choice as much as anything), but I am an actual, real software dev. On the other hand, in my past life I was a lawyer. I worked my ass off in high school to get into a top journalism school, worked hard in college and studied my ass off for the LSAT to get into a top-20 law school, and that STILL wasn't enough for me to get anywhere close to a high powered legal job. The worlds are very much different. I obviously prefer the more merit-based environment that's still found in tech, where "can you do the job" still trumps most things. But things are much much different in other environments.
    - eldavido 6y ago
      Long before this comment, I've believed software engineering is becoming more like law. There's been a noticeable uptick in credential-obsession, more of a "tracked" career, just eveything about it is heading in a more high-comp / professionalized / careerist direction. Probably inevitable given devs are making "real money" (biglaw or higher) in Silicon Valley, and having real influence, but still, I agree something may have been lost.

majormajor 6y ago

My early-2000s experience in mid-size-city Texas - not even Dallas or Houston - was getting closer to the OP. It wasn't that extreme, but the bright students were in magnet programs (or private schools, if $$$$), and were loading up on APs, SAT IIs, and all that crap. And the goal - accomplished by a handful of my class - was Harvard, Rice, Columbia, Duke, etc.

throw149102 6y ago

I think there's still things that ring out to me as true even though I didn't have that experience (Grew up in Iowa). So I'll agree that it's not always the hyper-competitive aspect of it, but it's the need to have a personal brand and to push that out on social media. And the desire to escape from our current economic conditions by credentialing is still there, even though it's not nearly as intense, and not all people here feel it equally.

heymijo 6y ago

> being young in 2020 in the hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US I think you'd be surprised how many 8th graders across the country are already stressing about SAT/ACT scores in places like southeast Ohio or Branson, MO. I just pulled Branson out of a hat and here's their recommendations for ACT/SAT testingv[0]. I've seen a lot of schools across the U.S. This schedule matches up with offical recs, but it's half the story. Goodhart's Law is in effect here. Those who are ahead will try to cement their leads. So official recs are ACT/SAT round 1 junior year. Those at the head of the pack find ways to test as early as middle school. These students know the game and feel the pressure, even when their families aren't pushing that hard. This culture is institutionalized in places well beyond the coasts and major metros. [0] https://www.branson.k12.mo.us/Page/3011 https://www.branson.k12.mo.us/Page/3011

eldavido 6y ago
If you look at the bigger picture it's hard to imagine this wouldn't be the case. Not trying to start a generational food fight but realistically the world has changed since the boomers grew up. The US is facing major great power rivalry from China, we're much more internationalized (I read in the economist that only ~5% of US citizens had passports around 1990), and probably something almost nobody is talking about, the financial condition of the country is vastly different today -- our national debt just passed 100% of GDP, our state and local governments are financially stretched, GDP growth has slowed down, and environmental causes are consuming more attention, and money. It'a almost unfathomable how much debt the US piled up at every level, from households to state and local to federal, over the past 50 years. It's a double-whammy: they weren't properly funding pensions/infrastructure/etc then, and now we have to both keep these things in good repair, AND make up for all the debt that's been accumulated (both financial and otherwise) by them not doing it over last generation. The decline of manufacturing EMPLOYMENT (not value created) is also a big part of this. There used to be this demand for high school graduates where you could just walk into a place and get a job. Nowadays, that's a lot harder to do. Just look at how many hours of work is required to afford the basic necessities of life (food, healthcare, shelter), it's gone up a lot. Not going to pontificate on why that is, but I think it's worth acknowledging as being true. Kind of hard to see how things wouldn't be more stressed, and stressful, today than 40-50 years ago.

vinay427 6y ago

> hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US I agree with the rest of your comment so I don't want to generally detract, but I think the qualification of major coastal metro areas includes a lot of places where your comment doesn't apply and excludes a lot of others (e.g. the upper Midwest). I think there are aspects where major coastal metros are outliers, but grade school and public university quality isn't one of them.

alexhutcheson 6y ago
Yeah, it was a short-hand way to convey the categorization and could have been more more precise. In reality, every region has its own culture that is somewhere along this spectrum. I’d also note that I think “school/university quality” != “a high pressure environment”. There are plenty of places that have one but not the other. In particular, there are lots of places where high schools are providing excellent education and public university options are good, but students don’t feel like they are in a pressure cooker.